Work with Your School to Maximize Speech Therapy Effectiveness

Work with Your School to Maximize Speech Therapy Effectiveness

by Gordy Rogers, M.S. CCC-SLP School

Whether your child is in private therapy or is getting services in a school or via, say, your local Early Intervention (EI) program, it is always a good idea to use the resources around you to maximize your child’s therapy gains. Unless your child is very young or home-schooled, he or she is going to spend a huge amount of time in school. This post is dedicated to the notion that therapy and the activities of daily life of your child, here school, don’t have to be so separate. Use the tips provided below to maximize the gains your child can make in speech therapy. Think of it as leverage for your time. You only have a limited amount of time with your speech therapist, and yet so much time outside of therapy. Applied consistently, these simple principles can perhaps double the value of your therapy.

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What to Do If Your Family Has Been Denied Early Intervention Services

What to Do If Your Family Has Been Denied Early Intervention Services

by Gordy Rogers, M.S. CCC-SLP Language Development State Resources

You, as a parent, know that your young child could use a boost in his or her language development, but your local Early Intervention (EI) program has deemed your child not sufficiently delayed to warrant funded therapy services. So what do you do now that you’ve been denied Early Intervention Services? This is an agonizing question to have to face. Unfortunately, as a consequence of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, many states sharply cut back on available funds for EI. I thought this was a terrible decision. What better investment in society is there than in the very young? And the research is strong and clear: intervening early in a child’s development can have an outsized impact on their overall development.

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How to Choose a Speech Therapist

How to Choose a Speech Therapist

by Gordy Rogers, M.S. CCC-SLP Speech Therapist

If you’re asking yourself, “how to choose a speech therapist?” Congratulations! This means that you’ve located local speech and language professionals who stand ready to service your family. Rest assured that all of our speech-language pathologists (SLPs) have been screened and vetted and hold State licensure as well as the esteemed Certificate of Clinical Competence (CCC) from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). So you have the pick of the best but it is still an important choice. As you decide on who you would like to work with, I thought a few tips from an “insider” might be helpful. Ultimately, choosing whom you will be working closely with for weeks and months is a highly personal decision. These tips are meant as a set of guidelines to confirm your instincts.

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How to Prepare for Speech Therapy Home Visits

How to Prepare for Speech Therapy Home Visits

by Gordy Rogers, M.S. CCC-SLP Speech Therapy Techniques

Perhaps you’ve already determined that you’d like to have your child seen by a speech pathologist and have had some of your initial questions answered. Many times your child’s speech therapy services can be delivered in the comfort and convenience of your own home. Especially for younger children (i.e. up to age 5), being “on their own turf” can really help foster rapport between your child and the clinician and make your child feel maximally comfortable as he or she works on something that may be somewhat challenging. This brief post is dedicated to providing parents with a few tips for maximizing the effectiveness of speech therapy home visits. The better prepared and knowledgeable you can be as you start the process of your home-based speech therapy, the more likely it is that your child will achieve his or her speech or language learning goals.

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Stuttering in Children and Toddlers

Stuttering in Children and Toddlers

by Gordy Rogers, M.S. CCC-SLP Language Development Speech Therapy for Kids

I get this question very often in my private practice. Many parents have observed in their young children (birth to age 5) a difficulty in forming fully fluent sentences. The task of forming coherent, perfectly articulated, and fluent language is a tall task and one that can take the whole of childhood to master. So, in many cases, stuttering in children or a disruption in their fluent speech is perfectly normal and not something that would require the attention of a speech therapist. Because stuttering is by far the most common type of speech dysfluency, I will focus today’s post on stuttering. However, there are several factors that parents should consider when faced with speech dysfluencies. These factors can very quickly give you, the parent, an indication of whether you would need to consult with a local speech therapist.

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